


vándr

by meritmut



Series: i loved you well, when we were young [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Loki is a child and likes to hide things and it has absolutely nothing to do with the lovely pink flush Sif gets in her cheeks when she's frustrated, nope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vándr

When the Lady Sif girds herself for battle, her princely paramour is never far away.

He likes to attend on her while she arms herself, even if it’s her handmaiden that does the real attending and Loki does no more than stand to one side, offering his dry wit in an attempt to loosen the tension in the hard-muscled lines of her body. Before she leaves she's always a storm laced up in steel, her great heart filled with restlessness and adrenaline and, sometimes (just sometimes) frustration.

Such is the case today, as with a face like thunder she strides to and fro about her room hunting out a missing vambrace, waving away her maid's assistance while Loki keeps to himself in a corner and wages a most valiant war of his own—a war against the smirk that threatens to curve across his features and give away his amusement at Sif's rising aggravation.

(Amusement, because the vambrace was most recently seen tossed across the room by his own hand as they’d tumbled into bed, the last time she came home victorious from a skirmish.)

It’s not the first time it’s happened, and he’d have thought it might have taught her to take better care of her armour, when at all other times she loves it like an extension of herself. But then, when the two of them fall together onto the sheets there are usually other things on her mind—and even Loki couldn’t deny he prides himself unabashedly on that.

He leans back against the wall, inspecting the cuticles of one hand while the other moves—slowly, casually—behind his back, letting the fleetest of smiles cross his lips as Sif stoops to check beneath her bed. Thyra, her maid, has taken the wise option and retreated to stand by the door, awaiting her lady’s word to wait on her once more.

“I’m sure it fell over there,” remarks Loki, incurring a foul glare from the warrior.

“I have looked over _there_ ,” she bites back, her eyes narrowing, “it cannot have flown away in the night, and I'll soon be late. I would appreciate your help, or your silence.”

Loki lifts one hand as if to defend himself, then extends it toward her. _“Friðr, minn sváss,”_ he says soothingly, glad of an excuse to smile that will hide his smirk.

Sif waves Thyra out of the room as she places her other hand in Loki’s own, and gently he tugs her close. Leaning in, she curls one arm around him, reaching down to snatch the stolen vambrace from behind his back and flash him a wry smirk. “You are abominable,” she informs him, her mouth a breath away from his, mirth dancing along the hard edges of her upturned lips when Loki feigns affront.

“Abominable?”

_“Vándr.”_

_Wicked._ The word hisses out against his teeth as Sif steals a kiss from him and steps away before his hands can rise to her waist, sliding the bracer over her wrist. She offers him her hand again, and with quick and clever fingers Loki laces up cords and tightens the leather about her forearm.

When it’s done, he lets his hands fall.

“Go well.”

Sif smiles more softly this time.

“Look for my shield when I return.”

He watches her go from the terrace that curves around his chambers, wondering why despite the irrefutable valour etched in every line of her armour, the surety of victory that comes on the wings of the First Realm’s shining fame, every so often a bitter thought creeps its way into his mind. She rides out at the head of the sortie and the thought returns, an insidious thread of venom amid the glory.

_Look for my shield._

He will, no doubt. He and Sif have their games but another he has played within his own head, toying with his own self-discipline and vowing each time that he will not look for her when they return—that he will not stand at his brother’s side to welcome her back, as he has done for centuries and will no doubt do for ages more (it’s a losing game, this one). It’s only fitting that the young lords see home the victorious soldiers, after all. It means nothing more than giving honour to those who defend them, and Loki tells himself that she means nothing more to the royal house than a prize, a sword on the wall in remembrance of her great deeds.

But if his fingers curl themselves into white-knuckled fists from the moment the bifröst opens to the very instant his seeking eyes find her among those that return; if despite the promises he makes Loki still waits, fingers tapping impatiently at his side, he has no excuse to offer save that sometimes even he, the wicked one, knows fear at times.

Though…only a little fear. When he looks for her, it’s for the wild hair crackling like smoke about a triumphant grin and the laughter of one who has met death and conquered, for the exasperation on her face as she picks him out of the watchers and sees worry on his face. He has never looked for her upon a bier, borne home by her brothers, the sword upon the wall sent to rust.

And when they reach her rooms, and her armour is scattered all over again in the rush of relief and joy coursing through their veins, if Loki's hands shake as he disrobes her and his eyes search every part of her for new hurts, Sif says nothing of it—and if her own hands are less than gentle with her leathers as she strips them away and bares herself to him, hungry for his gaze and for his touch, she is content to let him think it only carelessness.

**Author's Note:**

>  _friðr, minn sváss_ \- peace, my sweet (or thereabouts)
> 
> and look, there was kissing and no one died...


End file.
